Creature of the Sea
by rscoil
Summary: Ostracized by his species, Erik makes a deal to spend his nights as a human.


"Remember, Erik. No human can touch you, or the spell will break."

Erik nodded his agreement and the sea witch looked satisfied. At this point, he would have agreed to anything.

For twenty-five years, he'd been shunned by his own kind. His species was known for their extraordinary beauty, for glittering scales and beautiful faces. Instead, he was born with the rough skin of a shark. Even the human-like portion of his body was covered in the rough scales. Where the others had humanoid faces, he had the wide, beady eyes and upturned nose of a shark. An accident in his youth had distorted that visage even further, to the point where he'd given up on ever finding a mate.

Giving up touch was a small price. It wasn't as though anyone touched him to begin with. His very skin was designed to injure anyone who did.

So, Erik promised the witch that he would forego human touch in exchange for a nightly transformation into a human.

The transformation was not altogether unpleasant. He felt no pain, only a mild sense of curiosity, as his tail split in two. His skin was smoother, softer, and the pale peachy-pink color of seashells. And he had hair! Dark curls fell to the end of his neck as he ran a hand through them. His newly formed human nose drank in the smell of the sea. An old looking glass told him that his face was normal for a human.

The witch gave him human wrappings as well, and he understood why the first time he emerged from the sea. His human body did not adjust to temperature as his seafaring body did, and he was freezing.

Learning to walk took a week, as he learned to manipulate unwieldy legs. The effort was worth it the first night he made it onto the beach.

It was a strange feeling to be dry, to be out of the water. There was no push and pull from the tides, no steady rhythm with which to pace the day. How did humans survive without it?

It was another week before he ventured beyond the beach, and he'd yet to see any humans. No matter. It was easier to enjoy the spell without them.

The bus stop had long been an object of fascination for him. He could see it from the water. Shining boxes moved past at all hours of the day and night. What were they, and where did they go?

He was grateful that the witch had included a means of translation in her spell. The human text had always baffled him, but now he could read the words, even if he didn't understand their meaning.

But how to get to it?

A series of wooden platforms rose from the beach to the settlement above. Very slowly, he figured out how to climb the structure. These humans were ingenious.

Shining lights met him at the top, as bright as noontime sun. He could see the bus stop in the distance and he hurried toward it.

A human sat under the lean to, a female human if he wasn't mistaken. He mimicked her position and sat down as well. She gave him a brief smile before she stepped inside one of the moving boxes.

And so it went. Night after night, he would emerge from his cave and sit at the bus stop. Other people came and went, but the woman from the first night was almost always there.

From snippets of conversation, he learned that the boxes were called buses. This, of course, explained why the whole thing was called a bus stop. The bright things on the bus were called headlights, as he learned from a woman complaining about how bright they were. He learned how to read the clock above his head from a mother patiently explaining it to her child.

Few people looked his way. Those that did gave a curt nod and left him alone. It was far better than the jeering of his own kind.

One night, it was crowded and the woman sat beside him. She was lovely up close, and he tried not to stare.

"Hi, I'm Christine!"

It took him a moment to realize she was speaking to him and another to remember how his vocal cords worked.

"I am Erik."

"Nice to meet you!" She gave him a friendly smile. "I see you here a lot. You must have a pretty late bus."

Erik made a noncommittal noise. "It doesn't matter if I wait. The bus stop entertains me."

"You see a lot of characters here," she agreed as a new bus pulled up. "This one's mine. I'll see you around."

One day, she arrived holding a rectangular object he was unfamiliar with.

"What is that?"

She glanced down at the object. "This? It's my marine biology book. I know it's cliché, but I've always wanted to be a marine biologist. I'm in my last semester of college for it. Living the dream, you know."

Erik didn't know, but he nodded anyhow. "May I see?"

She opened the book to a page marked with brightly colored paper. "Look here. This is where I started."

An image of a shark dominated the page, its appearance not unlike his usual one.

Christine grinned. "Sharks are the coolest thing. I had a stuffed one as a kid and I just needed to know everything about them. Don't you think they're awesome?"

Erik thought of his own sharkskin and the ostracizing he'd known because of it. If anyone else had asked, he would have scoffed.

But Christine's face was earnest and her eyes were shining with excitement. He couldn't disappoint her.

"Yes, sharks are fascinating."

The weather grew colder. If not for Christine, Erik would have resented his nightly transformation. He never seemed to be warm in his human form.

Red and green decorations appeared around the bus stop, much to his confusion. Passengers carried larger sacks and packages than usual.

Christine groaned as she sat beside him. "Welcome to finals week. Four more exams and then I am free!"

"Oh?"

"Yeah," she frowned. "But then I won't see you anymore."

"Why?" His brow furrowed in confusion.

Her voice was sad. "I'll have my degree. I'll be moving back home."

"Oh."

The week passed far too quickly. There were tears in Christine's eyes when she arrived at the bus stop.

"I have something for you," she told him. She placed a package in his hand.

He unwrapped the bright paper to reveal a metal chain holding a small pendant in the shape of a shark. "Christine, thank you. This is wonderful. I shall treasure it." He fastened it around his neck. "I have something for you as well."

She held out her hands as he placed a conch shell into them. "You'll need to look inside."

Her face lit up. "You got me shark teeth!"

"Yes, is that okay?"

"It's wonderful." She hugged him and he could feel her warmth through his coat. "Thank you. For everything."

Just this once, her bus was on schedule and he stood up to see her off. "Good luck, Christine."

"Thank you." She kissed his cheek, and then she was gone.

Pain shot through his body as his hip gills split open. Suddenly, he remembered. She touched him, and a human touch was enough to break the spell. The ghost of her warm lips lingered on his cheek as he bolted for the steps to the beach.

He barely made it to the water as he felt his neck gills reopen. Rather than the familiar sensation of his legs gradually fusing, it felt like they were drawn together by chains. His skin grew rougher and his scalp seared with pain as his hair disappeared.

It was the worst pain his body had ever felt, but it was secondary to the pain in his heart.

There were no more transformations after that. The spell was broken and he was again condemned to a life of solitude.

Time wore on and he spent more of it in his cave. The metal shark around his neck was the only indication that he hadn't dreamed the whole thing.

As he floated in the shallows of his cave, a familiar perfume entered his nostrils.

She was here, silhouetted in the mouth of the cave.

Christine.


End file.
